The soil of my heart, or the heart of any person, must be good and honest. This is what the parable of the sower of seed teaches in Matthew 13. Good and honest must consume my frame of reference, my supreme center for all soul activity, my source of all motivation. My emotions , conscience , mind and will , all must be saturated with this goodness and honesty. It implies God consciousness. However, the heart of man is deceitful, indeed, desperately wicked , who can know it? Jeremiah 17:9.
A clean heart with truth in the inward man, and wisdom in the hidden man, is the formula of Psalm 51, created by God . Renewed in this man we find a right spirit , a sense of God’s presence , the Holy Spirit, and even joy and rejoicing. This man is renewed often , and is restored to the new heart and the new spirit which he secured when he first received Christ and his gift of salvation. See Ezekiel 36:25-27
Daily renewal, even 7 times in a day, is a necessity for the man with the new heart. This is because of the constant temptation surrounding him, first from his old sin nature’s lust patterns and then from the world system which lies in wickedness. Both exhume something bad and dishonest. The potential for a deceived heart is an ongoing fact. For this reason, the man with the true heart must refer constantly to the Word of truth, written in the Holy scriptures, and the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth.
If the world and the flesh are not enough to distract us, we also have the devil himself. With accusations and fiery darts, he attacks a Christian’s head, breast, loins, feet and the entire body. Faith shields us, and we attack back with the sword of the Spirit, a precise word given at a point in time to quench fiery darts.
Friends, our battle is fought in the realm of imaginations, impulses, impressions, and impositions which are calculated to agree with any part of us with the exception of our God given new nature. We must fight a good fight of faith, and all of our war culminates in this:
“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints …” Ephesians 6:18
Beloved, many are the furnaces of earth, many are the closets of seclusion. Throughout the day, months or years, many are the the encumbrances that face a man. For the Saint of God, these narrow places may become all too familiar. They steal our joy, they harm our sense of well-being. They are not welcome, not friends, but true enemies. They go about with their harassment campaign, picking apart the continuity of peaceful existence . But then, Jesus astounds us with a statement like this:
“But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. “Matthew 6:6
Friends , we have been here, closet bound, many times involuntarily, but now of our own accord we go. We find the secret place somewhat familiar as we have been here before. We have talked with God there, we have sometimes heard his gentle replies. We have sometimes been comforted , sometimes not, we have shut the door.
But the point of voluntary closeting must be to eliminate the randomness of the opportunity. It must be for results, for answers, for solutions , deliverances , healings. We must eventually go for communion! –Communion with the living God , communion with the lover of our soul. And so, Elijah:
“And the word of the Lord came unto Elijah, saying, Get thee hence, and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan. And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there. ” 1Kings 17:2-4
Elijah obeyed, drank of Cherith, and Ravens fed him morning and evening. At Cherith, Elijah cut a deal with God. They did business. God called him into the closet for divine interaction. The Elijah part was to obey, God’s part was to care for him.
In closing, as we learn to surrender to God in the closets which take on many forms, even fiery furnaces, we discover His care. More-so we discover Him, the God of caring comfort. Easy it is to feel abandoned by God in the cramped places of life. Easy it is to resort to our own soulish solutions. We must end blaming God for the terribleness of a cursed and fallen existence, and find Him our ever present help in time of need. He is the Savior of our soul. Love ya
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